5/26/20

We’re hiring a Principal to lead the Consulting practice within our Advisory Services business. You will help senior executives make high-impact choices to embrace digital health strategies to achieve business objectives and to realize breakthrough value associated with those choices.

Care plan adherence is one of the thorniest challenges facing healthcare today. We’re thrilled to announce our investment in Wellth, a company pairing the power of behavioral economics with technology to create motivation and improve health outcomes at scale.

After much anticipation, in early March, HHS released two final rules to implement interoperability and patient access provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act. Rock Health Managing Director & CEO Bill Evans caught up with two national healthcare leaders who played an integral role in ushering in this new regulatory era—HHS Deputy Secretary Eric Hargan and Google Chief Health Officer Dr. Karen DeSalvo. They discuss implications of the new rules, how stakeholders must balance data access with privacy protections, and the opportunities they see for innovation and collaboration going forward.

The pandemic is laying bare forces that present a moral obligation, alongside tremendous opportunity and formidable challenges, to the healthcare innovation community. Whatever you want to call it—Post-COVIDcare or the “new world order”—it’s time to see clearly and act accordingly.

Rock Health’s corporate partners are industry leaders in the healthcare ecosystem and beyond—they represent the nation’s top health systems, local and national payers, global pharma organizations, and more. We are honored to partner with them every day as they advance the scalable adoption of innovative healthcare technologies, and particularly now, as they throw their energy and talents behind tackling the effects of COVID-19 head on. Here’s how our corporate partners are fighting the COVID-19 pandemic doing what they do best and more.

Digital health venture funding had its strongest start ever in 2020, with a prodigious $3.1B invested across Q1. In February the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US, sending an immediate shock through public markets. The twin crises of a global pandemic and massive economic shifts will rapidly impact all market sectors, including digital health. To assess the scale, direction, and timing of the impact, we surveyed twelve leading healthcare investors between March 16 and March 20, 2020 (and included our own response in the sample). Although the responses paint a somber picture of the emerging funding environment, there is a tangible sense of resolve to not waste this crisis—to leverage digital health solutions to immediately combat the pandemic and build on that momentum to radically reshape the way healthcare is delivered in the US and globally.

Digital solutions are enabling communication, surveillance, diagnostics, treatment, and expanded capacity when healthcare needs it most. Our portfolio companies have jumped into action—here’s a look at just a few of the ways they’re supporting patients, providers, and researchers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Across the last decade, digital health has grown from a blip on the radar of investors to a robust sector receiving nearly one in ten venture dollars invested in the United States. In 2019, 359 US digital health startups raised $7.4B from 627 investors. Though six digital health companies entered the public markets in 2019, exits were a somewhat mixed bag, with M&A below trend at 112 deals across 2019.

Despite significant disparities in healthcare leadership today, industry leaders and employees share a belief that gender parity can be achieved within our lifetime. This year, we surveyed individuals working at healthcare startups and VCs to understand how they perceive initiatives at their organizations to promote the advancement of women, and offer concrete solutions for leaders to actively advance gender equity.

Rock Health and the Stanford Center for Digital Health release their findings from the 2019 Consumer Adoption Survey. In 2019, overall consumer adoption of digital health leveled off near the 2018 high water mark. The five-year picture represented in our annual survey is one of a steady transition to a progressively more digital consumer healthcare experience.

When Halle Tecco set out to build Rock Health nearly ten years ago, she saw a need to support entrepreneurs using technology to make healthcare massively better. Today, we’re thrilled to announce our investment in her latest venture, Natalist, a company conceived to close the glaring gaps she encountered on her path to parenthood—and fueled by the belief that those who want to have children deserve a better way. We’re humbled to be a part of Natalist’s $5M seed round and to back an incredible team on a mission to radically improve the fertility experience.

Medication errors cost the US healthcare system over $525B each year—roughly one in every six healthcare dollars spent. We’re excited to announce our investment in Arine, whose solution combines data science with clinical expertise to ensure patients are on the safest and most effective medication regimens.

As consumers increasingly take control of their own health and wellness, they drive market demand more directly. Devices, apps, and services are being created and tailored to meet their needs, enabling consumers to actively engage in health and wellness decision-making. To dig a little deeper beneath the surface of how industry players are adapting to this shift, we caught up with experts on the inside at GSK Consumer Healthcare, a Rock Health partner.

Since 2012, Podimetrics has worked tirelessly on a remote patient monitoring (RPM) solution to tackle the devastating problem of diabetic foot ulcers. With clinically validated sensor technology and care coordination, Podimetrics is now launching its product to additional commercial payers and at-risk providers. We’re thrilled to announce our participation in Podimetrics’ $13.4M Series B.

Digital therapeutic and pharmaceutical companies are partnering to build, validate, and expand access to new, software-based solutions that improve patient outcomes. This is new territory with few precedents, and the strategies for building successful alliances remain uncertain. Drawing from numerous interviews with digital therapeutic, pharma, and health plan leaders, this research outlines how to overcome execution risks and build successful pharma-digital therapeutic alliances.

Since 2015, Blue Shield of California has partnered with Rock Health to gain exposure to digital health and elevate its position as an innovative healthcare company. Through its partnership with Rock Health, Blue Shield of California has showcased thought leadership, collaborated on research, and gained unparalleled insight into the frontlines of healthcare innovation.

After seven years, we’ve seen $23B invested into thousands of digital health companies. But we wanted to know: what has been the real-world impact of digital health? We were moved to learn just how many lives had been significantly changed by a new wave of technology. We aim to shift the digital health dialogue from one focused on the degree of investment and future expectations to one about digital health’s effect on patients and healthcare outcomes. In that spirit, this ongoing project brings you stories of people living far outside Silicon Valley and the companies shifting the healthcare status quo who have made an impact on their lives.

The Rock Weekly

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